In the Light of Day: The Scorched Coffee Remix
by amonitrate
Summary: Beware Immortals toting manuscripts. Joe shoulda known better. A remix of unovis lj's "It was midnight." DM/M.


a remix of "It Was Midnight..." by unovislj written for remixredux08

**In the Light of Day (The Scorched Coffee Remix)**

Joe Dawson considered the sheath of paper in his hands and poured himself a shot that felt like the last drink allowed to a condemned man. His two friends, his two _immortal _friends, stood shoulder to shoulder before him at the bar waiting for his - what exactly? His opinion?

Methos was the first to speak. "So?"

So indeed. He shoulda called in sick, convinced Mike to open without him. He'd had a feeling, dammit, that this wasn't going to be his day. First of all he'd woken on a bare mattress, the sheets pulled loose by forgotten dreams and tangled like seaweed around his body, trying to drag him back into the depths of the restless night. Then after he'd managed to extricate himself from this trap he'd found himself staring dumbly into an empty can of coffee. By the time he'd made it to the bar and brewed himself a pot of instant energy, his mood had turned as foul and toxic as the coffee. Hadn't helped that his grounds-to-water ratio had been, shall we say, slightly off.

The last thing he'd expected from this shitty day was for the World's Oldest Man (TM) to show up bearing what appeared to be either a stab at fiction or a thinly veiled memoir of the golden days of Hollywood. It was hard to tell with Methos. Joe had been setting out fresh bottles behind the bar, jangling them together with a little more force than was strictly necessary when Methos and Duncan had come barreling in the door, bickering like magpies. Before Joe could get in a howdy-do Methos had thrust a handful of wrinkled paper into his face and ordered him to pass judgment on its contents while Duncan stood by, giddy with laughter. Yeah. Duncan MacLeod, giddy. Crazy thing was, Methos actually seemed to want Joe's approval. It was insane. Insane. Completely, totally, batshit insane.

"Um." It was the best he could do, under the circumstances. So he poured them both coffee and dumped a handful of paper sugar packets and little plastic containers of cream onto the bar next to the mugs.

Duncan let out a snort and then a more painful sound at what Joe assumed was an elbow to the solar plexus. He could only guess, because he wasn't quite ready to meet Methos' eyes. Methos took a sip of coffee, made a face, and proceeded to meticulously empty all of the packets of sugar one by one into the black liquid.

"Let me read it again, okay? It's a lot to take in." One of them had clearly gone bonkers. Given his morning, Joe was starting to suspect it might be him.

"Joe, it's five pages." Methos stacked the empty sugar packets into a pile and started in on the cream.

"Gimme a break." Joe downed the shot he'd poured when they'd first arrived and shook his head. "I get nervous when people watch me read."

Methos gave up on doctoring his beverage, slapped his hands down on the bar and leaned into Joe's space. "Come _on _Joe. I worked on it all day yesterday."

"Not all day," Duncan corrected. From the leer he shot Methos, Joe decided not to pursue that line of inquiry.

They were immortal. They were a historian's wet dream. Between them they had so many centuries of experience that their show and tell could bore an elementary school class to tears without ever scratching the surface. They also had the combined maturity of a three year old. No, wait – that would be an insult to toddlers everywhere.

He managed to find his voice. "You have a way with description. I'll give you that."

"I'll say," Duncan grinned. _"'The dying burps of ketchup packets_...'"

"Says the man who only recently found himself hooked on phonics." Methos crossed his arms over his chest and... good Lord, was he _pouting_?? "I've been writing since your ancestors were-"

"What? Sucking on a goat's teat? Or isn't that purple enough for you?"

Joe scanned the pages again, blinked, and returned to the first page. The prose stopped and started in fits, as if the author's mental processes had been repeatedly derailed. From what Joe could gather Methos was feeling a mite nostalgic for the latter days of Hollywood, when it had been populated with hard drinking writerly types. Writerly types who were probably weeping in their graves right about now.

Methos hovered at the bar like a kid waiting for a grade from a strict teacher. The jukebox flipped over from Don Henley to "Hotel California." Perfect. _You can check out any time you like but you can never leave. _Right. Joe looked up.

"Joe..." Methos' voice was venturing into sing-song territory, stringing out his name into about four syllables. Never a good sign.

"Have mercy on him, Joe. He slaved over it for hours." Duncan didn't sound the least bit impressed with whatever amount of effort Methos had put into the story fragment in Joe's hands.

"It's not quite finished," Methos snapped. "Someone kept interrupting my work."

"If anything, I gave you inspiration." Duncan settled onto the stool next to Methos, crowded into the other man's space. The fact that his hands weren't visible was a bit distracting.

"Is that what you're calling it now? Think a bit highly of yourself, don't you?" Methos shot Duncan a dirty look. There was a sound very like a slap from under the bar and then Duncan's hands made a reappearance, slightly reddened. Alrighty then.

"Well, even when it's finished, it's not exactly something you can sell," Joe ventured finally.

Methos threw up his hands in disgust. "What is it with you two and money? I didn't write it to make a _profit_."

"Why did you write it, then?" Duncan sounded curious, the first earnest words he'd spoken since the pair burst into his crappy day and turned it even more sideways.

Joe set the papers down and waited. He may have descended into some kind of twisted Immortal-induced acid trip, but he was still a Watcher, goddammit, and Methos was still the Holy Grail. Too bad the rest of the Watchers hadn't caught on to the fact that on most days he was closer to the Monty Python version than the Arthurian legends.

"I..." Methos rolled his eyes. "Why do you spend so much time fussing over your decor? I don't know. I was _bored_. I wanted to try something new."

Back in the day the man had hung with Byron and the Shelleys, the leading lights of their generation, whose works were still used to torture tenth grade English Literature students throughout the land.

"You mean to tell me that you've never, in all your..." Joe glanced around the near-empty bar. "Uh... years... I mean, this is really your first attempt to write a short story?"

Methos shrugged. "Let's just say it's the first one I've shown anybody. So you should feel honored."

Duncan dissolved into amusement again. "Honored? _I've _read it."

"That was different. You forced yourself on me."

Joe coughed. Methos rolled his eyes again. "He read over my shoulder, Joe."

"Yeah. I can see how that would be... distracting." Joe shook his head. Had someone slipped something into his drink? Someone had clearly slipped him a... "Micky. You expect me to believe that you called yourself Micky." He shook his head.

"What? It's a perfectly fine name. Besides. _Fiction_. Remember?"

"Did you catch the part about Lassie?" Duncan was going to be on the floor if he laughed any harder. And wouldn't that be a sight?

Joe poured himself another shot, buying time. He hadn't missed the reference to Byron in Methos' tall tale of the good old days, when the women were dames and the men were... not at all fond of television's most beloved pooch. Poor Lassie. The fact that Duncan found the whole thing so funny must be a sign that particular wedge between them had been narrowed somewhat, if not removed. It wasn't that Joe couldn't picture Lord Byron running the poor canine through out of pique, it was just... no. It was just too much. It was _Lassie_, for the love of... some things were still sacred in this world, or should be.

"Tell me that didn't really happen."

Methos plopped down onto a bar stool and buried his face in his hands. "It doesn't matter if it happened or not. It's _fiction_. It's a _story_." He let out a dramatic sigh. "Barbarians. I'm surrounded by barbarians."

"Sorry our literary criticism isn't up to your high standards," Duncan giggled. Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod was giggling. Like a fourteen year old schoolgirl. "You'll have to forgive us for lacking your superior experience with screwball comedy."

"I'll screw your-"

Joe held up a hand. "All right. I think you've both said enough."

"So?" Methos blinked, switching back into eager student mode. "Really, Joe. Be honest. What did you think?"

"You want to know what I think?" Joe poured himself a third shot, considered, then set out two more clean shot glasses. Filled those to the brim. Honest. Huh. Right. The thing about honesty - it was easier when you knew the man you were about to deliver it to wasn't packing a length of steel longer than his arm.

"Joe. Don't tease." Now even Duncan was leaning forward, waiting for his pronouncement.

"Honestly?"

Methos nodded, focused on Joe with the intensity of a snake before a mongoose. He was 5,000 years old and he'd come to a bartender not one percent of his age, asked him to critique his first fledgling attempt at pulp fiction. What were the odds of that?

Joe dropped the manuscript to the bar and cocked his head.

"I think..."

Methos was practically jittering with anticipation. Even Duncan had set aside his teasing amusement for something very like genuine curiousity.

Joe flashed a foolhardy grin at the Immortal Smothers Brothers and swallowed his last shot down in one bracing gulp.

"I think you shouldn't quit your day job."


End file.
